Sakura no mori no mankai no shita

While the cherry blossom season is famous in Japan, I hadn't realised before coming to Korea that it is also a noted period in the calendar here as well, if somewhat more low-key. There seemed to be a sense amongst my Korean Family and friends that we should go and view the blossom - given that there isn't much of it to see in downtown Busan - but it never quite came to pass. Anyway, the roads to Namhae were lined with cherry blossom when I travelled there last week, and between that and the trees on the PNU campus I felt like I'd had the experience.

Despite this, we went to a park in Eulsukdo at the weekend in what was probably a final attempt to appreciate the first signs of spring. There was some cherry blossom although much of it was fading, but the park was awash with colour anyway - the yellow of rapeseed. Korean heads bobbed up and down amongst the flowers taking photos of one another, in what seems to be something of a modern spring tradition. It wasn't long before we immersed ourselves in the foliage to do the same, and I spent most of the rest of the day trying to get yellow pollen out of my clothes for the trouble.

It says something about the local geography that I didn't even realise Eulsukdo was an island until later. We got there over a six-lane highway bridge which spanned about fifty meters of what I assumed was river but in retrospect must have been classed as sea. Apparently the whole area is part of a river delta but you probably have to be up one of the nearby mountains to get a real sense of this.